GuardiaN: "Astralis made a lot of mistakes on Overpass, pushing and dying unnecessarily"

Following the grand final, we managed to talk with the tournament MVP Ladislav "Guardian" Kovács, who led his team to the trophy with a master-class performance.

The Slovakian Sniper was impressive throughout the tournament, only recording one under-average rated map, and elevated his game for the grand final, finishing the game against Astralis with a +25 K-D and a 1.28 rating.

This is GuardiaN first MVP since Counter Pit S2

In our post-match interview, we talked about their record on Cache, dueling Nicolai "device" Reedtz and the clutch and comeback on Train.

You continue your undefeated run on Cache on LAN with Xizt, he had the legendary quote about Cache [while he was in NiP], so how did it work for you here, to get the win against Astralis?

I think we started pretty good on Cache, on the T side we got 10 rounds so that's pretty comfortable to go on the CT side with. On the CT side we lost pistol even though they gave me a chance to win the round, but I didn't win it. Then they started winning some rounds, but I think we felt pretty comfortable on the CT side, even though it was 13-12 for them. We figured out what was going wrong on the CT side for us and we knew if we won one round we would break their money. We only needed one round. I think we had the full control on the CT side.

About Xizt, he is pretty good with leading on the CT side of Cache. If he wants some flash, he know when to call for the flash, I think he feels it very well and it works pretty well with NiKo on the A site. They combined for some key rounds on Cache, not only against Astralis, I think it's pretty good.

When you say he is good at leading, you mean calling for he needs, not caling the whole game?

He also gives calls like "Now they have an eco, let's do this" or stuff like that, sometimes NiKo calls, it's like 50-50 between them. He is also good at calling stuff for himself, flashes, and he gets those kills. I think that is helping a lot.

You move to Overpass and that is obviously a strong map for Astralis. So going into it, are you in a mental state that you don't have to win the map, that you are just playing freely, seeing that you have at least three more coming after?

Overpass is the map that is probably the most uncomfortable for our team lately. I don't know why, probably because with olofmeister we had much, much more teamplay on that map. I actually have no idea. NiKo feels uncomfortable, I feel uncomfortable, somehow even calling for karrigan wasn't the way he wanted it.

So going into Overpass we were like: "We will play with no pressure, we already won the first map".When we were losing rounds were were thinking "we will win the next one, probably", we were taking the game easy. I'm happy we won it. They made a lot of mistakes on that map, if they wouldn't have made mistakes like that, pushing and dying unnecessarily, I think they would win the map. I think the reason we won Overpass is because they made much much more mistakes than we did.

Do you have an idea how that happened? Especially in those clutches it seemed like they overplayed their hand, pushed smokes and stuff like that, allowing you guys to clutch and come back into the game?

I think they were underestimating the situation, even though they are 5v2 they feel like they should push something. I think they underestimated many situations, for example we exploded out monster, we had the site and suddenly gla1ve pushes the smoke. So I think he underestimated the situation or misunderstood what was happening and gave us free kills. Those are small mistakes but in the final you do those mistakes, and you get punished.

On that map, and over all the maps, they were running these double or triple nade setups. They got you with it one time, I guess it's irritating to play against that and just die without even seeing anyone?

In the overtime, I was waiting for them to start nading mid, but I caught the wrong timing. (laughs) I mean, these setups are really good, they got a free kill, and everytime they got the nade kill they won the round, I think.

It's interesting from them and I'm sure that a lot of teams will start using that. It's a good idea and I have to respect them for that. They always come up with something new. I think that they are winning tournaments because of that, when they are practicing for a long time they come up with something new and that's why they have an advantage over the other teams.

Train was a different kind of a map comparing to the first two because you started 10-0 down, gla1ve was having a great game. At that point you win the 1v3 and you turn it around. Did it feel like there was a lot of pressure to win that round?

When you are down 10-0 and two players on their team have abouve 15 frags, you feel like "Hey, something is going wrong". You don't know what to do, everything simply goes wrong. We did B goes, we did A goes, we did three ivy pushes, we did everything and it didn't work, so in that scenario you are just thinking that we have to start playing with objectives, taking popdog, taking brown halls, taking ivy and then we can split them and stuff like this.

When you end up in a 1v3 and you know exactly where they are, you have a big chance to win. And I hit the shots, they didn't, that's the reason I won the round and that round probably gave us some life. We won four rounds in the row. Everything worked for them until that point, I think losing 1v3 and breaking their economy after that [really helped]. If you are 0-10 and nothing is working, you run out of ideas. You keep doing something you've done and you have to wait for their mistake. I think someone made a mistake and that's why they gave us a chance to come back.

Over the series, you got 15 AWP kills on device while he got 5 on you. Even though the statistic isn't only AWP vs AWP, do you feel like you had the upper hand in the AWP duel in the series here?

When I noticed that device was on 0-5 and the others were fragging pretty good, I just decided "Hey, he is not having his game, let me fight him". And they let me fight him on Cache, when I went to mid I killed him without giving him a chance. I felt like his game was not going well, they let me face him and I think that was the key point, he died many times and gave us the advantage in the rounds. You cannot blame him, he is a top tier player, a very good sniper but this time I think he made too many peeks and mistakes that he shouldn't.

You got the tournament win, obviously, the first win since ECS S4, first MVP for you since Counter Pit S2, first Intel Grand Slam since ESL One New York. So how does it feel and what does it mean going forward?

Wining a tournament is obviously very good, especially when it's a Grand Slam. I think that the Grand Slam tournaments have the highest value for us aside the Majors. It has been some time since we won a tournament, we lost some finals... It feels so nice. I won't lie, I will be humble, but it feels so nice to beat Astralis 3-0 in the final, especially when they beat us in DreamHack Marseille. But it's been a hard day and a hard game. It feels very good, I cannot describe it differently than that it feels perfect.

Yeah, both Dupreeh and Device didn't really have a good game. Device started so slowly which probably cost them first map, in generel they both usually play better. I think they really didn't expect Faze to step up and simply got shell-shocked, they ought to know better from Faze.

To be honest it was kind of baffeling to see Astralis like this.. They demonstrated their tactical prowess and ability to keep a cool head all throughout the playoffs, but in the final, they drop the ball completely.

The point was if they are the best team ever not if they are good... It's possible to be the best team ever with no major wins, but not with only 4 lan wins... Majors aren't everything but you gotta have at least comparable achievements. FaZe is not only not the best team ever, they are not even top5

Remember NaVi when flamie just replaced starix? that navi won more events than FaZe and also finished 2nd in a bunch more including twice in the major. So how is FaZe better all time than NaVi? because they have more wasted potential? give me a break. You either make a rating based on skill or a rating based on results, both are fine, but talent/potential has no place in an all time best teams list.
LDLC/EnVyUs (with shox and happy), Fnatic (pronax, olofm, krimz), NiP, Virtus.Pro, SK/Luminosity, NaVi are all above FaZe for all time best teams (no contest). Perhaps FaZe in the future will catch up to some of them, NaVi is relatively close, but for now they are not even top5. fnatic level is impossible for FaZe though

First of all dont come here and act all sassy when i said its in my opinion.
Second i think FaZe have topped VP Envy LDLC by now. Yeah they were awesome teams. But they didnt dominate the scene much, and i terms of these wins you r talking about. go check all achievements and compare.

It is your opinion obviously, clearly not based on facts which is the problem. Saying a silly opinion does not excuse it by saying it's only an opinion. FaZe dominating the scene is an interesting thought, in around 7 months they had 3 lan wins and 4 second place finishes. LDLC/EnVyUs with shox and happy won 5 events (1 major) in 7 months with 3 second place finishes. Guess that puts them ahead in the dominating category aswell. New fnatic with dennis won 5 events in a row, again ahead of FaZe in the "dominating" category.
Of course it's pointless talking about who had a better average, the question is what they did with their lineup. Fnatic with dennis maybe had a better streak than most other teams, but overall they did very little (same as faze), so putting them ahead of say VP as a better all time team does not make much sense.

Give me a break dude, FaZe never won a Bo3 or Bo5 from SK when both of the teams were at the top. They manage to lose every single final they were against SK. Fnatic and SK/Luminosity are by far the best teams in CS:GO history.

Dude, you compare the success regarding the whole CSGO history by achievements and a fact is that SK, fnatic and NiP (in the very early) days had much more of These than FaZe... now SK is obviously not successful anymore but the discussion was about sth different

I think Astralis is still the better team. Yes FaZe beat them 3-0 with something like a stand-in. But every map had over 29 rounds, so it wasnt such a stop. Astralis made a few mistakes more in this game, but overall I think they are one of the best teams of all time, while FaZe just has 6 inividual players that are/were the best of the world.

Guardian is great. The best and most Consistent awper to play CS for the last 10 years. And he's such a nice dude, a lot less cocky about his wins than many csgo okays are and respectful of his opponents.

Hope Astralis can bounce back, they had a fantastic tournament but clearly needed some kinda last push for every map here. Terrible stats for Dupreeh too, he's reminding me of Apex. Either he goes ham or he doesn't show up at all. Shame cuz the rest of Astralis looked strong.

device is their star player, when your star player has an average 1.0 rating in a grand final he is definitely weighing the team down. look at the detailed performance stats, device had the lowest impact rating on the whole server and got out-AWPed by GuardiaN so hard

Yeah maybe. I'll say that if Dupreeh had been performing at the same level Device did I think they could've taken it. Xyp, Magisk and Glaive were doing enough, Device was serviceable. He should have done better, yes, but I think they could've taken it if Dupreeh did better.

"When I noticed that device was on 0-5 and the others were fragging pretty good, I just decided "Hey, he is not having his game, let me fight him". And they let me fight him on Cache, when I went to mid I killed him without giving him a chance."
FULL DISRESPECT. DEV1CE IS FREE CONFIRMED.